It is this, then, and not any supposed “attempt to subject the whole island to his sway,” which constitutes the chief feature, the principal merit of Edward’s reign. To be a conqueror, although indeed this kind of conquest—the bringing one island under one government—would be the wisest and the best; to be a conqueror would be but an ordinary and very common sort of merit. The organ of “acquisitiveness” is possessed by a great many of the human race. Edward’s true glory lay, not in his desire to _take_, but in his willingness to _give_. When he went forth, “mighty in arms,” it was, in every case, because his foes left him no choice,—because to remain at peace would have been dishonour. But his peaceful conquests, his legislative victories, were entirely his own. Here we see his own mind and will. From his first accession to power, until the latest hour of his reign, two great objects were constantly present to his mind. He saw that the realm required, and ought to have, a parliament, consisting not only of prelates and lords, but of “all the commonalty of the realm, thither summoned;” and next, that a chief function and office of this parliament should be to deliberate upon proposals laid before it, which should become, when assented to, statutes of the realm.
It is the enunciation of these two principles which constitutes the real glory of king Edward’s reign. That enunciation was his own voluntary act, and its sincerity was proved by all the measures of his subsequent career. His life was devoted to the working out of this great theory. His first statute, in its preamble, gives a bold and fearless sketch of a free legislature; and, before he died, he had gathered around him, as elected members of that legislature, the representatives of all the most populous towns of his realm of England.
Justly then does the writer whom we have already cited, a contemporary of Spenser and of Shakespeare, describe this king as one “in whom we see the value of wisdom, kingly powers, and noble industry,” one who “was a fatherly king to his people; employing all his life, care, and labour to benefit and nourish the commonwealth”—one, in fine, “in whom the good government and commonwealth of England had their chief foundation.”[40]